Seeing
by ilexx
Summary: Oneshot. Too short to sum up.


I don't own Andromeda.

Set right after The Eschatology of Our Present

**Seeing**

Sitting in the somewhat empty bar, Dylan Hunt's eyes were like glued on to the picture he held, the one he had received from Avneri shortly before the old man had breathed his last. It showed Mala, the Seefran's little girl.

The child was smiling a bit shyly, had long strawberry-coloured hair and was wearing a jacket about three times her size, along with a pair of trousers utterly unable to survive on her without some suspenders.

_Who are you, child? Where are you really, Mala? _Dylan thought, smiling sadly. And then he suddenly seemed almost like paralysed. Those eyes, he would have recognised those eyes at any time, anywhere. _But how...? _he asked himself, risking a furtive glance over to the corner where Beka was sitting as far away as possible from him. The tall, imposing frame of the _Andromeda_'s captain seemed almost to shrink, drawn towards the photo as if he somehow wanted to sink himself in it.

It was not so much the eyes themselves as it was the look they held for him. No-one but her in the whole universe had ever looked at him that way. Really no-one but Beka. That open, frank, a bit twinkling, ironically smiling expression that never failed to annoy whatever well-mannered, well brought-up, self-confident people they ever came across... That direct look that – while she was holding back things she should have told him, during her most audacious attempts to lie to him as well as her most diplomatic schemes to conceal just how stupid she thought him to be – told him all she was thinking, before in the end it came pouring out of her like some sort of flood, regardless of how some of it might have sounded to his ears. The look that from their very first meeting, as she was still laying elaborate traps out for him, had warned him that she liked to gamble. And that she didn't mind cheating now and then. And yet also a look that always displayed something else as well, something he could not define, whenever she let her gaze rest on him.

This look was **his **look, the one she held exclusively for him. When he had found himself stranded out of his time, out of his world and life, it had been this look that had slowly, hesitantly started to restore to him all the things he'd suddenly found missing: during countless, sleepless hours on Obs Deck this look had been patiently there, silently building new windows to his nights, anchoring new ships to his at that time so very empty quays...

This look had been with him for years. Rev and Tyr had left, Trance had changed, and Harper and even Rommie had changed along with her, the Commonwealth was gone, then back, then gone again, adversaries like Rhade became friends or turned into shadows, yet this look remained a constant by his side. But then she went away, simply leaving the dance. _I need to get moving, Dylan. Move along with me._ He could not even pretend that she had not warned him. Okay, the Abyss had her then, but that was beside the point. He had been noticing all along that the pitiless, loveless world he had set himself and her out to save was choking her, making breathing for her more difficult than both of them had expected.

All of a sudden time had ran out; long after Leydon, long after Abel, long after Tyr, long after whomever else he might have missed and whatever other dreams she had to put to rest, Beka had decided that it was taking Prince Charming much too much time to show up. He would never know whether it had been him or someone other, and – if him – whether what drove her away had been him being too smart or too much of an idiot. She had simply decided that she had no more time to lose, to wait, not even for a little while longer... When she did reconsider, it had been too late. And then they had all found themselves here. He had got her back, but from then on he had never again met that look.

Remembering the way she had fought for him, fought **with **him to keep him from turning himself in when the collectors had pressed charges against him, the look in her eyes then so much just like the girl's on the picture in his hands, Dylan couldn't suppress a sad smile. _No need to go to prison, Beka, to feel like in a cage._

_Give me the word, Dylan – and I fly you out of this. _He squeezed his eyes shut for a brief moment. _Dammit Beka, why didn't I listen? Why couldn't we just keep flying?_

Straightening himself up, Dylan lifted his head – and found himself staring straight into her face, right across the room. He sat motionless, while she kept watching him with that look in her eyes – and the world dropped from existence. All of a sudden Dylan knew that he could still count on that look to creep up into her gaze, throwing him a little, ironic smile while she kept searching his eyes for answers, for questions, while he kept making excuses. Although he knew that it mainly meant 'Don't worry, I am still here with you! I'll help you out of this', it made him a bit sad, for it also showed him that she could see it all. Over the years he had come to the conclusion that it was Beka's main, as far as it concerned him almost her **only **fault, to see through all of his. Sometimes it got too much - and whenever that happened he tried to run away, to hide. He'd never stood his ground.

Never before, at least. Because this time he felt differently, warming up upon seeing this look he had so much missed again. He did not try to avoid it, did not try to escape. Safely storing away the photo into one of his pockets, Dylan stood up, his eyes never leaving Beka's for so much as a second; he walked over to her a bit like in slow motion, pulling himself a chair and sitting down at her table without asking permission.

"Hey, Dylan..."

"Hey, Beka... Want something to drink?"

"Water, thanks. You?"

"Harper, two waters..." he ordered over his shoulder, not even bothering to look.

"Two waters... Some party!" he heard her say in derision, but her voice was soft, softer than it had been in weeks.

"Well," he answered lightly, "I'm working on it. Just give us a while..."**  
**


End file.
